GlobalData on Northern Ireland’s broadband infrastructure

GlobalData’s Alaa Owaineh discusses the state of Northern Ireland’s broadband infrastructure and the steps being taken to improve it

A lesser known part of the confidence and supply deal agreed between the Conservative Party and the DUP, following the last general election was a £150m fund aimed at improving Northern Ireland’s broadband infrastructure. The Department for the Economy (DfE) has finally started the ball rolling, announcing a pre-tender for a 24 month contract for this sum. This initial phase is a market engagement exercise, seeking to get feedback from suppliers on feasible solutions, and refine the business case for this telecommunications upgrade.

Northern Ireland still lags behind the rest of the UK, in terms of broadband access and speed, though only slightly. A few factors have helped reduce the gap and increase levels of access and average broadband speed. Previous government funding (a £20m scheme that ended this summer, and a £23m one in 2015/16), and the introduction of a Universal Service Obligation by Ofgem have helped. So has the expansion of Virgin Media’s footprint in NI (especially in urban areas), and the FTTP roll out. However, around 50,000 premises still do not have access to speeds above 10 Mbit/s.

It is not entirely clear what additional impact this investment will have, on top of existing trends. A report, published by the region’s Broadband Industry Forum, estimated that this investment can contribute £1.2bn to Northern Ireland’s economy, if it is spent wisely. But as always, such figures should be taken with a pinch of salt. That being said, Northern Ireland has the longest distances from the exchange in the UK, a problem that has limited the ability to offer faster broadband in rural areas (which remain under served). Providing better broadband coverage in rural areas, which also have many SMEs, is likely to be a main source of benefits.

There is still a lot of uncertainty around this tender. The first issue is technology—the announcement explicitly calls for “potential innovative solutions”, leaving the door open to technology like fixed wireless, satellite, and cellular using the newly freed up 700 Mhz band (or a hybrid approach with many of these technologies). However, the timeframe given for the project, 24 months, is very short and infrastructure projects of this type normally take longer. This timeframe may have a big impact on the choice of technology and approach.

One thing is clear: Northern Ireland can definitely afford the fastest broadband infrastructure in the UK.